I've tried to think up some ways to increase the significance of critical injuries, as well as, raise the attractiveness of actually having a good Doctor in the group. Not just someone with a high Intellect or Medicine skill, but a Doctor. Bacta Specialist is a good segue for that I think. The book contradicts itself on healing Criticals per week as I recall, but I like only one check a week.

Some of the ideas I had, some of which are harsher than others I realize, but again, it's about both encouraging the inclusion of a Doctor and rewarding xp expenditure on the Skills and Talents.

-Only easy Difficulty Criticals can have an attempt made to heal them in the field. All others require appropriate facilities for treatment, med bay, hospital, etc.

-Each Critical injury upgrades the Difficulty of all Medicine checks.

-Critical injuries must be healed in a descending order of severity, so if you have a Hard Critical injury and an Easy, you can't even try to heal the Easy in the field since you can't treat the Hard.

-Bacta Specialist - For every rank of Bacta Specialist one additional Critical Heal check can made per week, as well as, each rank Downgrades the Difficulty of Heal checks.

Just ideas I have been thinking about.

Upon further reading I discovered Bacta Tanks worked better than I thought, so Bacta Specialist isn't useless. I am going to go with some of the other ideas though.

Upgrading all Medicine checks Difficulty per Critical.

Healing in Descending order of severity successfully requirement.

Some have expressed concerns over the 'Bleeding Out' Critical, so I thought about modifying my Critical heal check rule using Bacta Specialist so that by default only Easy Criticals can be healed in the field, and then with every rank of Bacta Specialist a Doctor can increase the level of Critical they can treat in the field.

I'm also going to allow an additional Critical heal attempt per rank of Bacta Specialist in a given time period.

I just started a game for my group. I am always the GM, so I only really get to play by including an NPC in the group for myself to play.

For this game, I created a Soldier Medic to play to help the group out because they tend shoot first and think of alternate solutions after they are no longer viable.

I plan on eventually adding in the Doctor Specialization to be most effective.

If I wait to purchase the talents that overlap from the specialization that has it cheapest, it will actually save 25 XP out of the 30 that it will cost me to add the specialization.

Stim Application costs 10 for the Doctor, 15 for the Medic (savings=5)

Master Doctor costs 15 for the Medic, 25 for the Doctor (savings=10)

Dodge costs 20 for the Medic, 25 for the Doctor (savings=5)

Anatomy Lessons cost 20 for the Doctor, 25 for the Medic (savings=5)

With 5 total ranks of surgeon and 3 total ranks of Bacta Specialist by the end, I will hopefully be able to keep them in good shape.

I also plan to add at least Commando and Sharp Shooter later as well.

I looked closely at both Medic and Doctor tonight. I actually prefer the Doctor specialization, myself. IMO, the Medic loses too many of the things that I think make the Doctor great.

On reflection, the Doctor seems better to me for personal/selfish reasons, because I can easily pick up three ranks of Grit and two ranks of Resolve, and one rank of Surgeon, and one rank of Toughened, before I get down to the rank of Dedication. All for the low, low cost of only 115 XP. And for personal/selfish reasons, that’s pretty much all I wanted from Doctor.

But Medic seems to me to better for group reasons. Stimpack Specialization gives you a +1 damage recovered per rank, and you can easily get two ranks of it. That’s a hell of a lot more health you can recover in a short period of time — just one extra point of health per stimpack is a total of five extra that you could recover with a maximum course in one day. Two extra points of health per stimpack would be ten extra points of health that you could recover, just from stimpacks alone. Only two ranks of Surgeon are available to you, and only two ranks of Grit. You also don’t get Resolve.

So, I guess it depends on what you’re looking for from a new specialization — is it for personal/selfish reasons, or are you doing this more to be able to help the other members of your party?

Dodge costs 20 for the Medic, 25 for the Doctor (savings=5)

Dodge is ranked. You can pick it up from both, so there's not really a savings so to speak, but you can get to Dodge 2 which is nice.

Dodge is ranked. You can pick it up from both, so there's not really a savings so to speak, but you can get to Dodge 2 which is nice.

Thanks for pointing that out! I did not read Dodge closely enough to realize that it was ranked, it'll be a bit before I get to it, we have only just started this campaign. 07/06 will be our second session, and one character is already critically injured.

I've been running games for about 21 years, since WEG. When WoC got the licence I was angry because I felt they broke the Star Wars RPG by making it level-based. When I realized that EotE wasn't level-based, I finally decided to give it a shot. We still have a Old Republic campaign going in Saga Edition where everyone just hit level 9. If this goes well, we will probably work to convert those characters over to this system.

So, I guess it depends on what you’re looking for from a new specialization — is it for personal/selfish reasons, or are you doing this more to be able to help the other members of your party?

I am mainly looking to help the other members of the party. I went with the Soldier Medic because the group would have been more squishy than not otherwise.

We have a female Corellian Human Smuggler Pilot (my wife), a Verpine Technician Outlaw Tech (my son), a Twi'lek Technician Slicer (my niece), a Droid Hired Gun Marauder (her husband), and a Human Explorer Big Game Hunter/Force Sensitive Exile (my friend).

If I went Doctor to Start it would have been 4 squishy to 2 not-so-squishy, by going Medic, we are 3 of each.

...as well as, raise the attractiveness of actually having a good Doctor in the group. Not just someone with a high Intellect or Medicine skill, but a Doctor.

There is nothing unattractive about a good Doctor. My group has never once touched a bacta tank or anything heavier than a stimpack since their medic is so good at his job. I've been looking at ways to nerf it, in fact, since it seems like nothing that happens in an encounter really stays with them all the way to the next combat.

I think Doctor is one of those things where, because of stimpacks, it's easy to get by without a Doctor. People probably think the 15 wounds you can get a day from stimpacks in a day is enough. It's like playing D&D 4e without a healer. Everyone can get some healing (healing surges and potions) and it's not terrible, especially if the GM tailors the adventures towards a party without a healer. Not to mention that a lot of people play this game with only limited combats. Why do you need a healer when you just run away from any fight anyway? Don't need a healer after social encounters. Things like that. Which is why a Doctor doesn't seem too attractive at first glance.

That being said, I completly agree that a Doctor is super awesome good and almost too good. A couple ranks in Surgeon are amazing. Couple that with a high intelligence and a few ranks in Medicine and you're unstopable. Our party almost never uses any stimpacks beyond the free one in the medkit. Our Medic's few ranks in Surgeon and Stimpack Specialization is enough to keep us fighting.

I want to know how you two are playing.

My character in the game that's been running on about a year now is a doctor/politico, and I have yet to actually feel that my investment in being a doctor is worth the xp I've spent on it. In fact I often feel that I would have been a much better help to the party by taking any other specialization because I'd have been able to decrease the length of combats which would equal fewer wounds taken.

Medicine can be rolled once an encounter per character. Just once. So, having built my character with talents, skills and attribute investments around medicine, I get one class talent boosted roll per encounter - which generally comes out to once a game session, if that. When I got the xp to buy up to stim application this changed to two rolls. Contrast that to the talents and skills of other classes, which can by and large be used repeatedly and aren't limited by the number of people in the party.

I roll 3 yellows and 1 green for my medicine roll. And quite frequently, I fail that check. This past week, as an example, I failed easy medicine checks (YYYG vs P) 3 times in a row. I even used Master Doctor and Natural Doctor to reroll and downgrade difficulty, and I still failed. Usually when I fail, I fail with advantages, but a failure with advantages does not heal the injured person. Which makes all of my ranks in surgeon useless, since you need at least one success for that to kick in. And to add insult to injury, you know what happens when I fail or roll poorly? The party just downs stimpacks and moves on. It's not like the scout failing a stealth check - that provides roleplay as we all try to come up with an alternate plan.

I didn't start having fun with my character until I picked up politico and was able to start combining stimpack application with inspired rhetoric. There's just no fun at all in having 1or 2 talent boosted class roll per session (since generally a combat encounter takes long enough that there's rarely time for more than one), with failures and poor rolls being easily replaced with a cheap, common item.

I just don't see how the doctor is worth the xp it takes to build it up, when you have cheap and easy to acquire stimpacks and medical packs that allow even unskilled characters to heal without penalty. Even with the the doctor's social skills - the skills that defend against social skills all have some combat benefits, so a combat character can make himself a better fighter, even if only marginally so, by taking those defensive social skills, but the doctor cannot make himself a better doctor or talker by picking up combat defenses. The doctor also has no talents to modify his social skills, so in nearly every instance of interaction you're better off having another specialization do the talking.

You're better off in every way I can think of to just pick up any other specialization and buy the medicine skill than to invest in the doctor.

I'm being serious and not sarcastic when I say I want to know how you two are playing! I really hate denigrating a class as "useless" but neither I, the players in my group. nor the GM have been able to come up with any way to make the doctor seem worthwhile. The roleplay is fine, but my concept is entirely unchanged if I'd taken the politico right off, and used well rounded to pick up medicine - and I would have been useful to my party systemically from jump.

We would very much welcome feedback that would make the doctor attractive. That's actually how I found these forums yesterday, I was looking for advice on playing the doctor to make the 200ish xp I've spent in that tree not feel like so much of a waste.

What sort of Difficulty pools are you rolling against? Do you have people providing Assist maneuvers? Are you using a one of the good medpacs?

Sounds like your GM needs to be more creative in his adventure sessions. My last two I had scenarios where the Dr. had to heal NPCs to either gain a main character's cooperation or to help one recover from injuries so that they could provide the PCs information they needed. Following that vein, Medicine skill also governs the use of poisons and drugs. The group could need to disable a target for capture and want to slip something to them in a social setting perhaps as an example of how Medicine can be worked into a session by a GM.

Bacta Specialist provides a flat boost to the use of Bacta Tanks without any rolls needed, so if your team were shot up badly, had exhausted their Stimpacks, and were needing to heal but didn't have time to wait, the Talent would be helpful in a time critical situation. That again requires the GM to make the circumstances where the Skill/Talent are called on. It's no different than a GM crafting scenarios so that combat specs get use out of different weapons and Talents, but it does require the effort on the GMs part.

If all you're being used for is the occasional heal at the end of a combat encounter then I could see the dice being unkind. Probability doesn't even out with only a roll or two a session. Sorry your GM isn't being all that creative.

Ugh, I just wrote out a long reply and it was eaten. Trying again! lol

I suspected that someone was going to say the GM was uncreative, I almost addressed that in my initial post - let me hasten to assert that the GM is the entire reason I haven't just tossed the character. He writes our adventures/campaign himself, and he works very hard to make sure that everyone has things to do that involve their skills and backgrounds. We've specialized in rescue missions, I've created knockout drugs and poisons. Heck, I have a growing collection of drugs that we have no idea what they do in character because when rolling I've rolled triumphs with all successes cancelled out - so the GM declared that they do something that can be used advantageously in the right circumstances, just not what I was trying for at the time. But we haven't taken the time just yet to find a lab to do the testing required to identify them.

But the GM would write stories around any specialization that I chose. That has nothing to do with the systemic problem that causes me to say the doctor is not worth the xp.

The reason that I say I'd have been better off with any other specialization and simply taking the medicine skill is because the doctor's talent tree is entirely geared around using medicine for healing. There are no talents for the creation and use of drugs. None for dealing with disease. None for the use of the doctor's social and knowledge skills. None for interacting with institutions of healing. He has no way to remove black dice, nor any way to add blue dice. You lose absolutely nothing at all systemically from taking, say, scholar, buying the medicine skill with well rounded and calling yourself a doctor, for any uses of medicine that do not heal injuries.

The doctor talent tree is designed almost entirely around improving medicine for healing, so it is for healing that the specialization should be judged, because anything else is story and can just as easily be done by anyone with the medicine skill and the character background to think of it.

I roll 3 yellows and 1 green for my medicine roll. And quite frequently, I fail that check. This past week, as an example, I failed easy medicine checks (YYYG vs P) 3 times in a row. I even used Master Doctor and Natural Doctor to reroll and downgrade difficulty, and I still failed. Usually when I fail, I fail with advantages, but a failure with advantages does not heal the injured person. Which makes all of my ranks in surgeon useless, since you need at least one success for that to kick in. And to add insult to injury, you know what happens when I fail or roll poorly? The party just downs stimpacks and moves on. It's not like the scout failing a stealth check - that provides roleplay as we all try to come up with an alternate plan.

That right there is just plain stupid bad luck. Nothing you can do about it. It would be like if your Cleric in D&D rolled nothing but 1s for the healing spells. Although, I will say that I find it hard to believe that YYYG vs P fails that often. Don't misunderstand me, I roll nothing but Advantages all the time too, it just seems extremly rare for a good Medicine check to fail often. All you need is 1 success against the 1 purple die (2 purple for really hurt people, but you should really be using stim packs if you can bring them under half damage) for all of the ranks of Surgen to kick in.

I'm being serious and not sarcastic when I say I want to know how you two are playing! I really hate denigrating a class as "useless" but neither I, the players in my group. nor the GM have been able to come up with any way to make the doctor seem worthwhile. The roleplay is fine, but my concept is entirely unchanged if I'd taken the politico right off, and used well rounded to pick up medicine - and I would have been useful to my party systemically from jump.

We would very much welcome feedback that would make the doctor attractive. That's actually how I found these forums yesterday, I was looking for advice on playing the doctor to make the 200ish xp I've spent in that tree not feel like so much of a waste.

Hard to make a build fun when the dice hate you. My group sees combat quite a bit, so every little bit of healing helps us. What really made the Doctor fun for me was the Stim Application. Boosting stats and joking about becoming drug addicts was amusing.

Really, if you're rolling YYYG vs P and failing often it wouldn't matter what class you're playing, you're going to have a bad time. It sounds like it's time you do something to appease the dice gods, or buy a new set of dice.

The reason that I say I'd have been better off with any other specialization and simply taking the medicine skill is because the doctor's talent tree is entirely geared around using medicine for healing. There are no talents for the creation and use of drugs. None for dealing with disease. None for the use of the doctor's social and knowledge skills. None for interacting with institutions of healing. He has no way to remove black dice, nor any way to add blue dice. You lose absolutely nothing at all systemically from taking, say, scholar, buying the medicine skill with well rounded and calling yourself a doctor, for any uses of medicine that do not heal injuries.

I noted about Stim Application above (which you responded in this thread before I realized I had forgotten to click post) but I feel like I should note it while quoting your response above. Improved Stim Application is great and it effectively gives most of what you're looking for. Sure there are no talents for the creation and use of drugs or for dealing with disease, but take the following into consideration.

Stim Application bumps a Characteristic. This is an upgrade on anything you do. Need to use social and knowledge skills? Need to interact with institutions of healing? Up your Int or social stats for a skill Upgrade. Sure, there is no way to remove black dice or any add blue dice, but an upgrade will either give a green or turn a green into a yellow. You could even use Deception and/or Skulldugery to be able to use Stim Application without anyone noticing. Basically just keeping your hands hidden in your pockets while injecting yourself.

Ugh, I just wrote out a long reply and it was eaten. Trying again! lol

I suspected that someone was going to say the GM was uncreative, I almost addressed that in my initial post - let me hasten to assert that the GM is the entire reason I haven't just tossed the character. He writes our adventures/campaign himself, and he works very hard to make sure that everyone has things to do that involve their skills and backgrounds. We've specialized in rescue missions, I've created knockout drugs and poisons. Heck, I have a growing collection of drugs that we have no idea what they do in character because when rolling I've rolled triumphs with all successes cancelled out - so the GM declared that they do something that can be used advantageously in the right circumstances, just not what I was trying for at the time. But we haven't taken the time just yet to find a lab to do the testing required to identify them.

But the GM would write stories around any specialization that I chose. That has nothing to do with the systemic problem that causes me to say the doctor is not worth the xp.

The reason that I say I'd have been better off with any other specialization and simply taking the medicine skill is because the doctor's talent tree is entirely geared around using medicine for healing. There are no talents for the creation and use of drugs. None for dealing with disease. None for the use of the doctor's social and knowledge skills. None for interacting with institutions of healing. He has no way to remove black dice, nor any way to add blue dice. You lose absolutely nothing at all systemically from taking, say, scholar, buying the medicine skill with well rounded and calling yourself a doctor, for any uses of medicine that do not heal injuries.

The doctor talent tree is designed almost entirely around improving medicine for healing, so it is for healing that the specialization should be judged, because anything else is story and can just as easily be done by anyone with the medicine skill and the character background to think of it.

I agree dice and fates can be unkind. You're sounding like you want to be more multi-faceted which is always a good thing. Understand though lamenting the Dr. is only good at healing is like a Marauder lamenting they're only good at hitting people with a stick. They're both hyper focused specs aimed essentially at a single task.

Doctors do get Pressure Point, which has got to be one of, if not the, single most effective combat Talent.

Stim App is pretty awesome.

I can see maybe the devs might've aimed either Surgeon or Bacta Specialist as a Medicine skill upgrade for Strain along the lines of some of the combat talents. That might be something to float past your GM as a house rule.

In a situation with healing there really is no reason, other than being under fire, for more than one character to not pitch in. If the medicine check is being made post combat then it's perfectly reasonable for two or three characters to 'assist'. You see 3 and 4 paramedics working on people seriously injured. 3 Boost dice from that would certainly help your success rate.

In regards to disease, I'm not really sure what else the game needs to do. It talks about how to make skill checks and determine difficulties for them. I would think the GM sets one for diagnosing and maybe another one for treatment. It could include a Knowledge check I guess as well for a portion, but at the end of the day that's up to the GM to come up with those ideas. You could certainly make the suggestions.

In regards to employing drugs I am hopeful the Technician splatbook is going to go into inventing things. House ruling it I would say using Medicine to create a form of a drug that can be weaponized and put into a gas grenade. Then take that with some kind of Mechanic check to simply make the grenade casing for it.

Hard to make a build fun when the dice hate you. My group sees combat quite a bit, so every little bit of healing helps us. What really made the Doctor fun for me was the Stim Application. Boosting stats and joking about becoming drug addicts was amusing.

Really, if you're rolling YYYG vs P and failing often it wouldn't matter what class you're playing, you're going to have a bad time. It sounds like it's time you do something to appease the dice gods, or buy a new set of dice.

I actually disagree with this.

Let's take stealth as an example. The scout is trying to sneak into the base and fails his roll. This can be just as fun as if he'd succeeded! Now there's lots of action as he tries to escape the guards, deal with the alarms, we all need to roleplay to come up with an alternate plan or save him if he was captured. Mind you, I'll acknowledge that successes are sweet, but generally speaking, especially with the Edge system, failure in a good group is not a bad time. Many of my best roleplaying moments have come out of failed rolls. Heck, our current campaign was completely altered in course by a series of failed attempts to follow a rival smuggler and we all ended up liking the new course better!

Except - now let's look at medicine to heal an injury. Failure! --- The injured person is not healed, and instead takes a stimpack. There is no roleplay there, there is no alternate story, there is nothing but a failed roll that is easily solved via a cheap and easily purchased item.

I agree dice and fates can be unkind. You're sounding like you want to be more multi-faceted which is always a good thing. Understand though lamenting the Dr. is only good at healing is like a Marauder lamenting they're only good at hitting people with a stick. They're both hyper focused specs aimed essentially at a single task.

Doctors do get Pressure Point, which has got to be one of, if not the, single most effective combat Talent.

Stim App is pretty awesome.

Except the marauder is not limited to hitting an enemy once an encounter. The doctor can make a single medicine roll to heal per character per encounter. If the marauder misses his combat hit - he just rolls again next round. Even if he hits, he can whack with his stick again next round if that one hit doesn't incapacitate the enemy.

If the doctor fails his one check, too bad so sad - he's done. If he succeeds but not well enough to fully heal the character he's trying to heal, he's still done. He gets one attempt to fulfill his purpose and that is all. The marauder is as focused, it's true, but the marauder is not limited to one use - he can use his purchased talents freely as long as there is an enemy in front of him. The doctor cannot do the same.

That's the basic core of my frustration with the doctor. His talent tree is so focused around such a specific use of a single skill (that he can't even raise to 2 at character generation without the use of XP), he can only use that skill once an encounter, and that use is pretty easily replaced via items. You might say he's worth his weight in gold against crits, but once again, there are no talents to aid in the healing of crits so it is not a doctor exclusive and anyone with the medicine skill can fill that role.

Stim application is fairly limited in that it costs so much strain. None of the other players actually wanted me to use it on them until I'd also picked up politico and inspiring rhetoric; they wanted to keep their limited strain pool for the use of their own strain costing talents. Though I'll admit that may be our playstyle - the GM responds to how we play. Since we're generally good guys, we use stun settings on our blasters as default. So most of our enemies use it in return because we've now got a rep as a knock out and capture team who only fires with deadly force if you do first. Since you can always try to escape, but dead is dead, most of our fighting is stun fighting. Which means strain is a very valuable resource. I think I used stim app once before taking IR, against a group of gangers who ambushed us with deadly force for stepping into their turf and not paying the toll for passage.

I haven't picked up pressure point yet because it hadn't been in character to do so, but it still seems bizarre to me that it's based around improving a skill the doctor has no class access to. Is there any other specialization that has talents geared around improving skills they don't actually have?

I'll be picking it up soon though because I was nearly killed by a guy who jumped me with a vibroknife a few sessions back, and my hired bodyguard read me the riot act for having no way to defend myself. He didn't seem to be appeased by being told that's what I have him around for. lol

[removing lag induced double post as best i can]

Except the marauder is not limited to hitting an enemy once an encounter. The doctor can make a single medicine roll to heal per character per encounter. If the marauder misses his combat hit - he just rolls again next round. Even if he hits, he can whack with his stick again next round if that one hit doesn't incapacitate the enemy.

If the doctor fails his one check, too bad so sad - he's done. If he succeeds but not well enough to fully heal the character he's trying to heal, he's still done. He gets one attempt to fulfill his purpose and that is all. The marauder is as focused, it's true, but the marauder is not limited to one use - he can use his purchased talents freely as long as there is an enemy in front of him. The doctor cannot do the same.

Stim application is fairly limited in that it costs so much strain. None of the other players actually wanted me to use it on them until I'd also picked up politico and inspiring rhetoric; they wanted to keep their limited strain pool for the use of their own strain costing talents. Though I'll admit that may be our playstyle - the GM responds to how we play. Since we're generally good guys, we use stun settings on our blasters as default. So most of our enemies use it in return because we've now got a rep as a knock out and capture team who only fires with deadly force if you do first. Since you can always try to escape, but dead is dead, most of our fighting is stun fighting. Which means strain is a very valuable resource. I think I used stim app once before taking IR, against a group of gangers who ambushed us with deadly force for stepping into their turf and not paying the toll for passage.

All the more reason to have other characters assist in my mind and add the Boost dice to insure success.

In regards to your team not wanting to have stim app done that sounds like personal choice and a reason for you to advance it on the talent tree.

In regards to comparison to combat checks that's really apples to oranges. A Slicer typically only gets one check to bust into a computer. If you botch a social skills check it's over. So it's hardly as though Medicine should be considered differently, I mean if you could just roll over and over until success is achieved, why roll at all? An enemy in a combat encounter might win.

Except the marauder is not limited to hitting an enemy once an encounter. The doctor can make a single medicine roll to heal per character per encounter. If the marauder misses his combat hit - he just rolls again next round. Even if he hits, he can whack with his stick again next round if that one hit doesn't incapacitate the enemy.

If the doctor fails his one check, too bad so sad - he's done. If he succeeds but not well enough to fully heal the character he's trying to heal, he's still done. He gets one attempt to fulfill his purpose and that is all. The marauder is as focused, it's true, but the marauder is not limited to one use - he can use his purchased talents freely as long as there is an enemy in front of him. The doctor cannot do the same.

Stim application is fairly limited in that it costs so much strain. None of the other players actually wanted me to use it on them until I'd also picked up politico and inspiring rhetoric; they wanted to keep their limited strain pool for the use of their own strain costing talents. Though I'll admit that may be our playstyle - the GM responds to how we play. Since we're generally good guys, we use stun settings on our blasters as default. So most of our enemies use it in return because we've now got a rep as a knock out and capture team who only fires with deadly force if you do first. Since you can always try to escape, but dead is dead, most of our fighting is stun fighting. Which means strain is a very valuable resource. I think I used stim app once before taking IR, against a group of gangers who ambushed us with deadly force for stepping into their turf and not paying the toll for passage.

All the more reason to have other characters assist in my mind and add the Boost dice to insure success.

In regards to your team not wanting to have stim app done that sounds like personal choice and a reason for you to advance it on the talent tree.

In regards to comparison to combat checks that's really apples to oranges. A Slicer typically only gets one check to bust into a computer. If you botch a social skills check it's over. So it's hardly as though Medicine should be considered differently, I mean if you could just roll over and over until success is achieved, why roll at all? An enemy in a combat encounter might win.

I used the combat comparison in response to the marauder reference. I can just as easily make similar statements regarding other one use skills.

In no instance that I can think of is there another specialization that is so narrowly focused on a skill that is as easily replicated by purchased items. A stimpack costs a baseline 25 credits. You can't go out and spend 25 credits on consumable items to charm/coerce/deceive someone, hack a computer, open a lock, mod a weapon, sell a black market item, find food in the wilderness, navigate through space, get a better deal on a contract negotiation, etc.

Those failed rolls open up different avenues of story, not a simple unzipping of the backpack.

I also can't think of another specialization that has talents to modify an out of class skill. But it's really the 25 credit duplication of talents combined with no other talents to enhance other uses of skills than the aspect being duplicated that I find problematic.

A scout with an investment in medicine, the Utility Belt talent, a handful of stimpacks and a medpack really doesn't lose much over the doctor with his investment in medicine, surgeon and bacta specialist. And any good doctor is going to have a medpack and a handful of stimpacks so the scout isn't even really out of pocket on gear. I am skeptical of the benefit of pressure point over the scout's combat talents and skills because the doctor with pressure point still has no defenses other than Dodge and needs to close on his enemies to use it.

But I will friend you if you like so I can remember to come and give a recant if I need to if I discover pressure point is a bigger benefit than I think it will be. I keep seeing people touting it as an amazing talent, but with no combat skills or other talents to back it up I'm expecting to get shot full of holes or stabbed if I try to routinely close to use it.

Hard to make a build fun when the dice hate you. My group sees combat quite a bit, so every little bit of healing helps us. What really made the Doctor fun for me was the Stim Application. Boosting stats and joking about becoming drug addicts was amusing.

Really, if you're rolling YYYG vs P and failing often it wouldn't matter what class you're playing, you're going to have a bad time. It sounds like it's time you do something to appease the dice gods, or buy a new set of dice.

I actually disagree with this.

Let's take stealth as an example. The scout is trying to sneak into the base and fails his roll. This can be just as fun as if he'd succeeded! Now there's lots of action as he tries to escape the guards, deal with the alarms, we all need to roleplay to come up with an alternate plan or save him if he was captured. Mind you, I'll acknowledge that successes are sweet, but generally speaking, especially with the Edge system, failure in a good group is not a bad time. Many of my best roleplaying moments have come out of failed rolls. Heck, our current campaign was completely altered in course by a series of failed attempts to follow a rival smuggler and we all ended up liking the new course better!

Except - now let's look at medicine to heal an injury. Failure! --- The injured person is not healed, and instead takes a stimpack. There is no roleplay there, there is no alternate story, there is nothing but a failed roll that is easily solved via a cheap and easily purchased item.

Or....

The scout is trying to sneak into the base and fails his roll. The guards spot him and open fire. The Scout tries to shoot back, but he again fails, because the dice gods are angry. The guards keep shooting and kill him. When the Doctor doesn't pass a medicine check the patient just needs to wait some time before the Doctor can try again and/or pop stims. (However long it takes for the GM to rule another encounter has passed if there isn't any actual combat.)

Personally, I'd rather fall back on stims than be dead.

Except the marauder is not limited to hitting an enemy once an encounter. The doctor can make a single medicine roll to heal per character per encounter. If the marauder misses his combat hit - he just rolls again next round. Even if he hits, he can whack with his stick again next round if that one hit doesn't incapacitate the enemy.

If the doctor fails his one check, too bad so sad - he's done. If he succeeds but not well enough to fully heal the character he's trying to heal, he's still done. He gets one attempt to fulfill his purpose and that is all. The marauder is as focused, it's true, but the marauder is not limited to one use - he can use his purchased talents freely as long as there is an enemy in front of him. The doctor cannot do the same.

Well, the Doctor can try again after the next fight. In my group there have been plenty of times where we're either out of stims or the day has gone long with battle. If the Doctor doesn't heal (much) then the player just hangs back some during the next fight so they aren't as likely to get shot at again. After the next fight the Doctor can try to heal them again.

Stim application is fairly limited in that it costs so much strain. None of the other players actually wanted me to use it on them until I'd also picked up politico and inspiring rhetoric; they wanted to keep their limited strain pool for the use of their own strain costing talents.

Pick up Improved Stim Application. 1 Strain for the upgrade is cheep. If they complain at that... well... I hope your GM starts hitting you with a lot of stun weapons because it sounds like the party is running low on strain. While you're at it, pick up Supreme Stim Application. Boosting extra characteristics for Triumphs is pretty cool.

I haven't picked up pressure point yet because it hadn't been in character to do so, but it still seems bizarre to me that it's based around improving a skill the doctor has no class access to. Is there any other specialization that has talents geared around improving skills they don't actually have?

I'll be picking it up soon though because I was nearly killed by a guy who jumped me with a vibroknife a few sessions back, and my hired bodyguard read me the riot act for having no way to defend myself. He didn't seem to be appeased by being told that's what I have him around for. lol

Again, Stim Application would be pretty cool in this situation. If you have a 2 in Brawn or Agility, Stim Application makes it a 3. Rolling GGG in combat checks isn't terrible.

I totally understand not picking up a talent because it doesn't seem fitting to the character. My Doctor was actually Soldier/Medic/Doctor so that I could get the Brawl skill as a class skill and it was my concept all along to be punching people out. Sounds like your character has the perfect reason to pick up Pressure Point now. Even untrained you can still be a threat to a random thug off the street.

I hope these conversations are helping you come up with different ways to use your Doctor or give you insight into the abilities already present in the career. I went through the same thing with my Politico. I was trying to use Scathing Tirade as my only attack. My problem was just the opposite of yours, I kept rolling nothing but successes. Which was great because it meant I could always hit bad guys, but it sucked because when only one or two were in range I was only doing one damage to each. I needed advantages to really cause some damage to them.

Kavadh, the doctor has access to the Brawl skill. He just pays +5 XP for each rank since it's not a class skill.

And even so, like 2P51 says, you Stim App yourself (for example) and increase your Brawn to 3...now you're rolling a decent combat check with some decent damage (3+ranks in medicine+Success, all of which ignores the target's Soak).

Bad rolls can affect anyone. But they don't mean anything more to a doctor than to any other character. It seems like you've simply got the short end of the stick on dice luck, and that sucks, but there should be enough info on the narrative dice for your character to contribute in some way to the fun of the session.

Well, the Doctor can try again after the next fight. In my group there have been plenty of times where we're either out of stims or the day has gone long with battle. If the Doctor doesn't heal (much) then the player just hangs back some during the next fight so they aren't as likely to get shot at again. After the next fight the Doctor can try to heal them again.

Interesting. We've never had multiple combat encounters without time to heal up in between.

From the context of your question, it may be that there is more group dynamic interpretation going on to affect our view of the doctor than I'd at first suspected. Are you interpreting each individual fight as an encounter? Meaning - if you are clearing out a single floor base, do you count each room as a separate encounter? We would count the entire base as one encounter, not each individual room/fight.

If you are counting each room as an encounter, and thus new opportunity to make a medicine check, and we are counting the entire base as one encounter thus there being only one roll, naturally you and I will have vastly different perspectives on the weight of the skill and associated talents. And we'll never come to an agreement because in our individual experiences, the "value" of the skill really is different.

I commented in a previous post that most of our fighting is stun fighting, so strain is super valuable. Our party is made up of mostly good guys, so we use stun settings on our blasters by default. We now have a reputation as being 'knock out and capture' guys who only respond lethally if you attack lethally first. So by and large our opponents attack with stun because if we win and capture them, they can always try to escape. And heck, we often just let people go. That base for example, we just knocked everyone out, took what we were after, then left them all alive and otherwise unharmed. We didn't loot or even take their weapons. But dead is dead. So opponents who know us shoot to stun, and many of them return the favor and don't take our stuff after they knock us out if they win.

Obviously not all opponents are that nice. But right now we're operating out of a central base so most of the people we're dealing with we know and vice versa.

That may be why I am enjoying my politico abilities far more than my doctor side, as you put it that way. By largely stun fighting, inspiring rhetoric is our healing, and the politico is the doctor. I hadn't thought it in that way until just now. I guess it hadn't occurred to me that stun settings might not be most people's default.

This is funny because I don't have Scathing Tirade. I have no offensive abilities at all - all I do is heal and support. That's why tactical foes start concentrating fire at me. I keep the rest of the team up and running, so long as you're not shooting to kill it's very difficult to take anyone down with me standing right there handing out blue dice and strain like candies with Supreme Inspiring Rhetoric.

For some bizarro reason, I can only reliably roll success when I am using IR. I have the same dice pools for leadership as I do for medicine, but medicine always fails and leadership always succeeds!

I roll 3 yellows and 1 green for my medicine roll. And quite frequently, I fail that check.

Well, the Doctor can try again after the next fight. In my group there have been plenty of times where we're either out of stims or the day has gone long with battle. If the Doctor doesn't heal (much) then the player just hangs back some during the next fight so they aren't as likely to get shot at again. After the next fight the Doctor can try to heal them again.

Interesting. We've never had multiple combat encounters without time to heal up in between.

From the context of your question, it may be that there is more group dynamic interpretation going on to affect our view of the doctor than I'd at first suspected. Are you interpreting each individual fight as an encounter? Meaning - if you are clearing out a single floor base, do you count each room as a separate encounter? We would count the entire base as one encounter, not each individual room/fight.

I believe the CRB states that an encounter is when you enter structured play and it ends when structured play ends. Our group is looking at this from a D&D 4E perspective, which is to say we hop out of structured play after we clear a room. This gives us time to heal, search bodies, and do a little recon on what lays ahead without having to worry about turns and rounds.

With how the game is written, I can completly see keeping things in structured play during an entire base. Afterall, wouldn't the bad guys inside hear the fighting going on around them and come after you? If you're moving quick to clear a building there is no time to pause. In a firefight a minute (length of a round) is a long time. Perhaps my group has a more game-y interpetation and your group is more realistic.

Perhaps you should chat with the GM and group about taking some breathers while on a mission. Once you secure a location take a quick breather and hop out of structured play. I'm imagining the group making it to a room that is easily defended. A guy or two guarding each entrance to watch for bad guys. Even naritively popping a few rounds off at them to keep them at bay while the doctor can do his thing. This would give time for the group to engage in witty banter and check their weapons. You see this quite a bit in movies. After a big fight the team checks their ammo and makes sure their gear is in check before pushing forward. This would give a quick moment for the doctor to do his thing and try to heal up the team and reset the heal counter for the next fight.

Also, the GM could just count an encouter over after the fight ends, even if the next group of badies are right around the corner and you don't have time to heal. That would just mean that you're struggling to get to each guy that needs healing during the fight, but you said that you didn't have any offensive abilities anyway so the team won't be missing out on your gun. This also has a cinimatic feel. The Doctor running through combat, dodging shots, and getting to the next guy who could use help. If you count a new encounter when the next firefight starts, then you can have the fun of running to each injured guy all over again.

It sounds like you could use a few more encounters during your adventuring day to allow for more opportuneties to heal. Quite honestly, perhaps my group has too many encounters in a day. (We rely on our Medic for healing and only used stim packs in emergiencies or if it'll bring us back to half for easy medicine checks.) Question for you, how many characters in the group have abilities that are once per encounter? If you're the only one then it'll be easier to talk to the GM about how he defines an encounter. If there are other people who have encounter abilities, then you'll have to think about how increasing how often those can be used will also affect your game.

This is why we talk things through instead of saying "you're wrong." Now we know where the crux of your opinion lies, which is that you have less oppertunities to use your abilties than if you were playing in my group.

Pick up Improved Stim Application. 1 Strain for the upgrade is cheep. If they complain at that... well... I hope your GM starts hitting you with a lot of stun weapons because it sounds like the party is running low on strain. While you're at it, pick up Supreme Stim Application. Boosting extra characteristics for Triumphs is pretty cool.

I commented in a previous post that most of our fighting is stun fighting, so strain is super valuable. Our party is made up of mostly good guys, so we use stun settings on our blasters by default. We now have a reputation as being 'knock out and capture' guys who only respond lethally if you attack lethally first. So by and large our opponents attack with stun because if we win and capture them, they can always try to escape. And heck, we often just let people go. That base for example, we just knocked everyone out, took what we were after, then left them all alive and otherwise unharmed. We didn't loot or even take their weapons. But dead is dead. So opponents who know us shoot to stun, and many of them return the favor and don't take our stuff after they knock us out if they win.

Obviously not all opponents are that nice. But right now we're operating out of a central base so most of the people we're dealing with we know and vice versa.

That may be why I am enjoying my politico abilities far more than my doctor side, as you put it that way. By largely stun fighting, inspiring rhetoric is our healing, and the politico is the doctor. I hadn't thought it in that way until just now. I guess it hadn't occurred to me that stun settings might not be most people's default.

Again, this is a difference of play style. My group has been burned by people escaping so many times in past games that we'd rather kill the baddies in the fight. Someone unconsious can always wake up and go find or scream for help. It takes so long to start bounding and gagging everyone we encounter to ensure they don't make our situation worse. Our problem is leaving someone alive when we want to question someone. lol Also, we like fighting at longer than short range, which is the limit on most stun weapons. Although, like you say, if these baddies are people you know, then leaving them alive is probably a good idea. You start killing them and they'll just come find you and kill you as well. A live and let live philosophy.

However, one strain isn't that bad. All it takes is one advantage to heal that up. Work your position in the initiative order to go just before the next player you're going to give the stim to and boost them. Then, when they go right after you they can easily spend an advantage to recover that one strain. The upgrade should make it easier to recover that one point of strain for that turn and it's nothing but gravy all turns after that.

Remember, Stim Application lasts for an encounter. If the GM is making encounters last for an entire day of fighting, then your stim will last that long as well. You boost a shooter's Agility and it'll more than pay for itself in strain recovery and/or damage output. An extra or better die will help with every shot they take. It will help with generating successes and advantages for the entire encounter. I can completly understand turning down the 4 strain version, but it seems silly to me to turn down the 1 strain version. Do they often spend a second maneuver to aim? The second maneuver costs two strain. Suffer the one strain from Stim Application and don't take a second maneuver. I'd rather take an upgrade for 1 strain than a boost die for two strain. Then, the next turn they'll still have the upgrade and can choose to take the second maneuver for the 2 strain and are coming out ahead.

I hope these conversations are helping you come up with different ways to use your Doctor or give you insight into the abilities already present in the career. I went through the same thing with my Politico. I was trying to use Scathing Tirade as my only attack. My problem was just the opposite of yours, I kept rolling nothing but successes. Which was great because it meant I could always hit bad guys, but it sucked because when only one or two were in range I was only doing one damage to each. I needed advantages to really cause some damage to them.

This is funny because I don't have Scathing Tirade. I have no offensive abilities at all - all I do is heal and support. That's why tactical foes start concentrating fire at me. I keep the rest of the team up and running, so long as you're not shooting to kill it's very difficult to take anyone down with me standing right there handing out blue dice and strain like candies with Supreme Inspiring Rhetoric.

For some bizarro reason, I can only reliably roll success when I am using IR. I have the same dice pools for leadership as I do for medicine, but medicine always fails and leadership always succeeds!

I have a love/hate relationship with the dice. Last night, after True Aim, weapon mods, and party boosts I rolled YYYYGBBB vs R and almost missed with a net result of 1 success and 9 advantages. The Medic in our game has given up on shooting because he never hits on his YGB vs P. He's pretty much doing what you're doing by picking up Commander:Tactician for Field Commander just so that he has something productive to do in combat.

As they say, Geek the Mage. That's what you get for being support against smart enemies. They realize you're the real problem over the gun toting fighters. That at least shows that you're doing something productive. Keep up the good work. I hope this post helps you figure out a few more things about Doctor.

I have a love/hate relationship with the dice. Last night, after True Aim, weapon mods, and party boosts I rolled YYYYGBBB vs R and almost missed with a net result of 1 success and 9 advantages. The Medic in our game has given up on shooting because he never hits on his YGB vs P. He's pretty much doing what you're doing by picking up Commander:Tactician for Field Commander just so that he has something productive to do in combat.

I'm beginning to think allowing Advantages to be traded straight out for Successes might be a good house rule. In our games I can't even count the number of times a "highly skilled, very competent" (3Y1G) character has failed Easy and Average skill checks but ended with 4+ Advantages and a Triumph.

It works out for us with Stim Application. I think that you missed my comment about "before I picked up Inspiring Rhetoric..." There are no issues now with players wanting stim app. In fact, one of the players is debating picking up some new obligation with "junkie" because he's that addicted to the doctor's "drugs." Hah, it's pretty funny. He's like, "Hey Doc, I'm going gambling ... can you give me some of that stuff..." "Hey Doc, I'm a better pilot if you give me that..." "Hey, Doc... we're walking down the street... I trip less with that juice..."

As a party we have removed his access to all group funds. Which is absolutely hysterical because he's the ship's captain. He owns the ship but we've blocked his access to all funds and resources.

This right here is actually what defines my frustration with the narrow focus of the Doctor. He's not based around medicine - he's based around using medicine to heal. There is no RP value in such a narrow focus of an otherwise broad skill, especially when that exact area of focus is easily replicated with a 25 credit item. I mean, think about that for a moment. 3 levels of Surgeon ... Three talents ... And you automatically beat that with your first and second stimpack each day, and equal it with your third for a total of 75 credits. That's just obscene

Stim Application, whether it succeeds or fails, provides openings for roleplay and humor. Healing wounds ... really doesn't. I don't care if I fail with a stim app roll because either way it's funny. I care with a healing roll because either way it's boring. I have 3 levels of Surgeon and 2 levels of Bacta Specialist. Which ultimately, boils down to 5 talents and 50xp of no roleplay value that can be cheaply duplicated. Grit and Resolve provide no roleplay value either really (except those rare moments when the Doc takes a full on point blank stun blast to the face and just stands there making smart assed comments), but it doesn't bug me the way Surgeon does because there's no quick and easy way to buy the same benefit.

But Stim App + Supreme Inspiring Rhetoric is really great. As a party, we have no standard tactics because sometimes we want the guys with Quick Strike to go first, other times we want my bonus dice right off. Other times it's a really tough and agonizing call. And that, to me, is what makes a truly successful ability.

I have a love/hate relationship with the dice. Last night, after True Aim, weapon mods, and party boosts I rolled YYYYGBBB vs R and almost missed with a net result of 1 success and 9 advantages. The Medic in our game has given up on shooting because he never hits on his YGB vs P. He's pretty much doing what you're doing by picking up Commander:Tactician for Field Commander just so that he has something productive to do in combat.

As they say, Geek the Mage. That's what you get for being support against smart enemies. They realize you're the real problem over the gun toting fighters. That at least shows that you're doing something productive. Keep up the good work. I hope this post helps you figure out a few more things about Doctor.

Yeah, I only shoot when I'm low on strain and I'm hoping for advantages to get a few points of strain back. lol I'd been planning on picking up Marshall, but after seeing the reports on it by people who've bought the book already (my flgs doesn't have it yet ) ... I will most likely end up just picking up a combat skill with Well Rounded.

It did help. I'm still dissatisfied with the design of the doctor, but it's caused me to evaluate the pros and cons of playstyle and perspective. At the end of the day, I have too much fun with the way we interpret encounters and how we play to want to try and muck around to improve the flaws that are created. But at least now I am cognizant of other options, and I'm knowingly making that choice.

I think I mentioned geek the mage with Kavadh playing the part of the mage in my first or second post in this thread. I've been writing such walls of text though that I suspect much of what I'm saying is being lost in my own verbosity.

I feel that the doctor doesn't get as much as other specializations do on a point per point evaluation - but this conversation has made me aware of how much that evaluation is weighted for the way we play. I don't know why it never occurred to me that if we fight mainly with stun, naturally the wound healing is going to be weak. That's embarrassing, that is.

I feel that the doctor doesn't get as much as other specializations do on a point per point evaluation - but this conversation has made me aware of how much that evaluation is weighted for the way we play. I don't know why it never occurred to me that if we fight mainly with stun, naturally the wound healing is going to be weak. That's embarrassing, that is.

I don't think my group would get much out of the Doctor either. As I mentioned up thread, I'm our team's 'medic' and I'm playing a Technician (Outlaw Tech, Mechanic, Splicer). I do plenty of healing (1Y3G1B) after you toss one Stim on the heaviest wounded guy (free one from the Medpac!).

If there was a similar "problem" with Mechanic or another "support" class I could see this just being a case of "too much combat class goodness"... okay... hang on. I'll admit a dedicated Slicer (and probably Scholar) might feel a bit under appreciated as well.

The "Doctor Issue" has gotten me thinking about this. I'll have to canoodle it for a while.

I feel that the doctor doesn't get as much as other specializations do on a point per point evaluation - but this conversation has made me aware of how much that evaluation is weighted for the way we play. I don't know why it never occurred to me that if we fight mainly with stun, naturally the wound healing is going to be weak. That's embarrassing, that is.

I don't think my group would get much out of the Doctor either. As I mentioned up thread, I'm our team's 'medic' and I'm playing a Technician (Outlaw Tech, Mechanic, Splicer). I do plenty of healing (1Y3G1B) after you toss one Stim on the heaviest wounded guy (free one from the Medpac!).

If there was a similar "problem" with Mechanic or another "support" class I could see this just being a case of "too much combat class goodness"... okay... hang on. I'll admit a dedicated Slicer (and probably Scholar) might feel a bit under appreciated as well.

The "Doctor Issue" has gotten me thinking about this. I'll have to canoodle it for a while.

I think the main problem the slicer is going to run into is "defensive slicing." Once again, a significant portion of their talent tree is devoted to such a narrow aspect of a skill. But at least you can't defend your computer systems with a 25 credit common item!

Another thing that bugs me with the Doctor is that all of the "natural" talents that reroll (Natural Charmer, Natural Negotiator, Natural Brawler, etc) allow for at least two skills - except the Doctor's. He gets only one rerolled skill - Medicine.

I don't see the scholar as having much issue unless the GM doesn't provide opportunities to interact with institutions of knowledge or learning. The scholar isn't as narrowly focused. and Well Rounded is pretty spiffy. I don't think any of the specializations are as narrowly focused on one single aspect of a single skill as is the Doctor. Even the Medic gets Well Rounded to fill out other areas of play.

Heck, I play a Marauder in another game, and that's a narrow focused class. But it somehow doesn't feel as limited. But as I mentioned above, at this point I'm not even sure if that's the class anymore, or the way we're playing the game. We only have one combat a session, if that, and the vast majority of the ones we do have are stun battles. We're also all support characters, and had to hire a combat NPC for when we needed to fight. I spend more time making drugs than I do healing anyone, so naturally I'm going to be frustrated that my talents are revolved around healing rather than generic uses of medicine that can be used for making drugs.